The No Kings demonstrations that flooded our streets are being sold as spontaneous uprisings of concerned citizens, but the money trail tells a different story: professional left-wing networks and billionaire-backed foundations quietly financed the operation. Records and reporting show that Indivisible, the group coordinating logistics and communications for No Kings, has been the beneficiary of millions from major progressive funders, indicating this was anything but grassroots.
At the center of the controversy is the Open Society network, which funneled multi-million dollar grants to Indivisible over recent years, including a two-year $3 million award in 2023 and roughly $7 million-plus in grants dating back to 2017. Conservatives should not be surprised to find that a parade of well-known leftist donors have been underwriting the machinery that turns social media outrage into national demonstrations.
This money did not come only from Soros-linked outfits; reporting from several outlets has compiled a who’s who of progressive power players and dark-money conduits—Arabella Advisors’ network, Tides, wealthy philanthropists and even labor groups have been tied to the infrastructure behind No Kings. When elites bankroll a nationwide political operation, the public has a right to know whether these protests were manufactured to influence politics rather than to express genuine, independent civic concern.
Organizers insist their protests are organic and point to small-dollar donors and grassroots chapters; the Open Society Foundations have likewise stated they do not pay or direct protesters and that grants were for general civic engagement. But the appearance of professionalized toolkits, coordinated logistics, sign-printing, and reimbursement programs undermines the claim of spontaneity and raises real questions about accountability.
The scale of the October demonstrations was real—surveys and on-the-ground counts put massive crowds in major cities, feeding media narratives and putting enormous pressure on public officials. Yet when millions rally with professionally made signs and identical slogans, it’s fair for Americans to ask who is buying those signs and shaping the message. Patriotic citizens deserve transparency, not the same anonymous funding networks the left uses to tilt every major public debate.
Republican lawmakers have responded as they should: demanding answers and crafting tools to root out shadowy financing that can fuel violence and chaos. Senator Ted Cruz and colleagues introduced the Stop FUNDERs Act to allow prosecutors to go after organizations that repeatedly underwrite violent or coordinated interstate riots, a commonsense measure to make sure villainous financiers cannot hide behind nonprofit umbrellas while wrecking our cities. If Washington refuses to act, the same financiers will keep buying political theater to their advantage.
Americans who love freedom must reject the left’s cynical playbook: outsource outrage to wealthy benefactors, outsource messaging to PR networks, and then call the result a “people’s movement.” Real patriots will demand full transparency from every organization and donor tied to nationwide protests, protect the right to peaceful assembly, and stop the elites from weaponizing civic energy into political warfare against hardworking citizens and the next free elections.
